RoS checks 3,322 premises of organisations in first eight months of 2016

The Deputy Prime Minister said the inspection had exceeded the initial target of 2,615 premises of organisations inspected or 127 per cent for this year.

Ahmad Zahid, who is also the Home Minister, said the inspection was important to reduce the risk of abuse of organisations for the purpose of carrying out activities that breached the law under the Societies Act 1966.

"It's undeniable that registered organisations in this country carry out various voluntary services that help the community considerably, but there are a few who intend to take the opportunity to abuse the organisations by doing things prohibited by the Societies Act 1966.

"We don't want any registered organisation to be involved directly or indirectly with activities that jeopardise security and is detrimental to the nation such as the Daish, movement of illegal fund and so on," he said in conjunction with the National Organisation Festival 2016, here today.

The text of his speech was read by Home Ministry Secretary-General Datuk Seri Alwi Ibrahim.

The event was also attended by RoS Director-General Datuk Mohammad Razin Abdullah and the Melaka State Exco for Corporate Affairs, Human Resources and Non-Governmental Organisations Datuk M.S. Mahadevan.

Ahmad Zahid said the inspection with notice was not intended to burden anyone but carried out at the registered address of the organisation concerned to enable the ROS officers to see for themselves the venue of the organisation's activity, inspect documents such as the register of members, financial record and record of activities of the organisation.

He said that besides ensuring that the organisation only carried out activities that were permitted, the inspection was also important to ensure that the organisation's accounts were clean and that it did not receive doubtful funds especially for activities that placed national security at stake such as moving illegal funds and funding terrorists.